


21 Guns

by Phentys



Category: Enter the Gungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Kinda implied Gunslinger/Edwin but only like two sentences, Mild Language, Mild Shitposting, One Shot, Reunions, Sad, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 10:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21509698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phentys/pseuds/Phentys
Summary: The Gunslinger remembered everything.He still had his eyes, and good old Slinger; that would be enough. If he could make it through the end of this, it’d be over; all the souls trapped here liberated, all the abominations destroyed. The Bullet King didn’t stand a chance. And in the next chamber when he faced the Beholster, he destroyed it with ease and also a really nice AK-47 he’d picked up which fired oranges instead of bullets. The Mineflayer. The High Priest again. When he got to the Forge, he had one goal in mind- find that bullet, destroy the Dragun, and finish this once and for all.He never realized who he’d be getting that bullet from.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Kudos: 6





	21 Guns

It took him longer than he’d like to admit to realize what was happening.

At first, it was like he was watching this poor sap from some outside perspective, like he was stuck to the man’s shoulder but not in any way involved. He watched him decently obliterate enemies in his path, in spite of his terrible aim, and eventually uncover some strange backwards-pointed gun—it was mostly a blur. Some bizarre, fanatstical images stained his mind, some sort of flying ship in a vast, dark expanse, like the nights in Nevada, the sun long disappeared beneath the horizon, and the glowing stars sailing across the unlit dome of the sky. It was like a dream, some sort of skipping narrative he had no control over, and he watched the man he was shadowing destroy this strange ship like his life depended on it. 

Even when he woke up again, seeing the stranger but this time disconnected from him, he shambled aimlessly into the depths he’d just been dragged through. Dizzy and confused at the assemblage of guns and items he’d been dealt, he sifted through chests as he found them. Some of the things were familiar, some of them strange, some just nonsensical; a compressed air cannon? What good could that possibly be? More importantly, he realized during a hazy fight with a particularly awful bird, why does it fire sharks? Regardless, that thing carried him more than well enough until he found a much, much more powerful friend in the yari launcher, which absolutely blasted ass through his drunken saunter about the now somewhat-familiar dungeon, easily dispatching the snake-woman before the elevator.

But he still didn’t know what he was doing. There was really only one way forward, and even though his surroundings grew more familiar and his vision got less foggy with his progression, he wasn’t fully sure where he was headed. After nearly getting crushed by a sliding cube and then by a huge malicious bocci ball, it was only as he approached the following boss that things began to fall together. That red cloak, face full of eyes- he’d seen it before. And as he descended to the deepest chamber, little blips kept came back to him. When he saw the smith working away on a gun, he felt he knew her face, but didn’t know from where. When he destroyed the dragon at the chamber’s helm, he felt some strange sadness, like he’d killed something he once loved. Beyond that, in that strange void, when that skeletal hand pulled him into unknown depths, and his own hands began to ache—something wasn’t right. He knew all of this. The flesh cubes, the shelletons, all the damn cultists. 

It wasn’t until he finally was in that final room with that final boss. It wasn’t the hat that tipped him off, or that familiar gun. It was the eyes, those bullet eyes he knew, but had never seen in someone else. 

It was always something he’d seen in the mirror.

He fought blindly, through every change of form that wretched thing tried, until nothing remained of it but dust and those fucking eyes. That should have been the end—unless there was more he needed to do? The drunken feeling returned to him, crushing him under the weight of collapsing space, and when he finally peeled his eyes open, he had no remaining questions.

The Gunslinger remembered everything.

He still had his eyes, and good old Slinger; that would be enough. If he could make it through the end of this, it’d be over; all the souls trapped here liberated, all the abominations destroyed. The Bullet King didn’t stand a chance. And in the next chamber when he faced the Beholster, he destroyed it with ease and also a really nice AK-47 he’d picked up which fired oranges instead of bullets. The Mineflayer. The High Priest again. When he got to the Forge, he had one goal in mind- find that bullet, destroy the Dragun, and finish this once and for all. 

He never realized who he’d be getting that bullet from.

The Gunslinger stopped dead when he entered the room. He knew he’d seen her during the last run-through as the Paradox, but it had never dawned on him who she was. His heart sank when she looked at him, at first uncaring but eyes then widening in surprise.

“I’ve forgotten your name.” He said quietly.

“I don’t have one anymore. Nobody does; I’ve forgotten yours as well,” she replied after a pause. “It’s the Blacksmith now.”

“Gunslinger, I guess.” He looked at the strange array of weapons she had for sale, the rifts in the floor— “How long have you been here?”

“Oh,” she slipped out a defeated laugh, “I don’t know. Clocks don’t work right. It’s been…a long time.” The Blacksmith looked at her calloused hands, and the unfinished gun. “I only know what’s happening outside by gossip from the gungeoneers. A lot has changed since your time. I’m sure you have a lot of questions…”

The Gunslinger pondered this for a moment before asking, “Texas ever secede from Mexico?”

“Oh,” a smile cracked her face, “oh buddy,” and she laughed, first into her hand, but then she threw her head back and cackled. “Oh, buddy! For, like, ten years maybe! The Republic of Texas got annexed by the Union basically right after it seceded from Mexico.”

“…Yer pullin’ my leg.”

“Nope. Then it seceded from the Union during the Civil War to be part of the Confederacy, and then got back into the Union after that whole fiasco got mostly sorted out.” She chuckled, a little cruelly, as she went back to work on the gun. “It remained in the Union until the downfall of traditional government in favor of the Hegemony…”

The Gunslinger looked at the weapons again. The Black Hole Gun. All this time he’d been working his way back to this point, he’d never considered how many of the guns he’d witnessed in the Gungeon that wouldn’t even cross his wildest dreams in Nevada. 

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been?” He asked.

“If I had to take a wild stab, at least five hundred years.” She replied flatly.

The Gunslinger froze.

“I’ve seen thousands of gungoneers and none of them want to give me a clear-cut answer about what year they think it is.” The Blacksmith huffed. “It’s all ‘gimme the bullet!’ ‘Why are your hearts so expensive?’ Babies, the lot of them.”

“Cadence.” The Gunslinger choked out, an instant later feeling terrible that he could recall her name so easily but not the Blacksmith’s. Did that mean she wasn’t there? “Is Cadence okay?”

“She’s in the Breach. You didn’t see her?” The Blacksmith squinted. “Or…earlier, that glitched thing…was that…?”

“I didn’t go back to the Breach after that.” He said. “Is she okay?”

“She’s got a shop with Ox.” The Blacksmith replied. When the Gunslinger didn’t respond right away, she clarified, “I made a robot to keep her safe. His name’s Ox.”

“A robot,” the Gunslinger murmured, not entirely sure what that entailed but trusting the Blacksmith’s protectiveness. She’d gotten it from somewhere— 

“Edwin!” He said suddenly, running to her anvil. “Edwin! Is Edwin in here somewhere?”

The Blacksmith’s face fell. That familiar pit formed in the Gunslinger’s chest.

“He was here with me for a long time.” She murmured, staring at the unfinished gun. “He made so many amazing guns, so many useful items; so, so many gungoneers relied on him to overcome their regrets and kill their pasts. A lot of his guns are still floating around here. But he kept going back to fight—“

She stopped. Her hand clenched the side of the anvil with a white-knuckle grip.

“…To get to the Lich. He missed you.” For a moment she was silent, and then she looked back up at the Gunslinger. Were her eyes always red?

“I know why I made this place.” The Gunslinger looked behind him, into the previous room of destroyed gundead. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“Then fix it.”

The Blacksmith cleared the unfinished gun from her work station and procured materials the Gunslinger had never seen before. She arranged four strange pieces precariously on her anvil before bringing her hammer down once, with a mighty clang and a flashbang of white light. When vision returned to the Gunslinger, the Blacksmith was looking at the newly-forged item in her hand, a tired smirk on her face.

“Heh. I’ve never been so happy to make one of these.” She murmured. Her smirk faded. “What do you think will happen…to all this? All of us?”

“Hopefully somethin’ better than what you’re going through now.” He sighed. The Gunslinger slowly extended his hand, and she tossed him The Bullet. It glowed ethereally in his palm, its outline fidgeting against his skin like it wasn’t fully solid. 

“Will The Great Bullet never have fallen? I wonder what will happen to the gungoneers still in the breach…” she shook her head. “Poor dumbass Pilot. Killed his past and everything and he’s still stuck here— though that must have been you glued to him the last time he came through.”

“Probably.” The Gunslinger laughed weakly. “You’ve grown up a lot.”

“Well…maybe not the next time we meet. We’ll see I guess.” The Blacksmith put the unfinished gun back on the anvil.

“Edwin would be proud, if he wasn’t already.”

The blacksmith furrowed her brow and chuckled again. 

“Thanks. Take the Black Hole Gun. You’ll need it— and good luck.”

“Thanks. I’ll need that, too.”

The Bullet in hand, the Gunslinger turned to the Dragun’s lair. This he could handle. The real challenge lay ahead, to face what he’d become.


End file.
